


For Holding

by theycallmeDernhelm (onyourleft084)



Series: and after all this time/i’m still into you [13]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M, No Plot, Pining, Trace amounts of Angst, ineffable husbands, touch starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:21:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22963822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onyourleft084/pseuds/theycallmeDernhelm
Summary: Aziraphale has been holding back for six thousand years, clutching his hands together, for fear that one day he’ll forget himself and he’ll reach out to touch Crowley.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: and after all this time/i’m still into you [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1515578
Comments: 23
Kudos: 241





	For Holding

Aziraphale has been holding back for six thousand years, clutching his hands together, for fear that one day he’ll forget himself and he’ll reach out to touch Crowley. He has tried not to think of adjusting cloak-brooches and tunic-belts, of straightening collars and loose ties no matter how much they beg, how much they tease for him to put them to rights. It is his own curiosity that frightens him, desire and longing like a tidal wave even an angel cannot fight back. So he limits his contact with the demon to handshakes, to brotherly pats on the back. Anything more intimate— to fasten buttons where Crowley cannot reach, to tuck a stray lock of hair behind his ear— and Aziraphale fears that his hands will wander beyond his control. What if they do more than they’re supposed to, what if they run themselves up Crowley’s narrow chest or fasten themselves to his hips? What if, God forbid, those fingers entwine between Crowley’s own, or card through the layers of his russet hair?

Aziraphale has had this body long enough to know that where his hands go, his lips usually follow. And he can’t have that, can he?

He can’t have any of this. 

And so for six thousand years he keeps to himself. Sits on his hands. Keeps them folded. He does not touch Crowley, he _cannot_ , he reminds himself, this is a way of keeping them safe. And anyway, their relationship is fragile, built on the Arrangement. The lightest brush of a hand could destroy it all. So no. He doesn’t touch Crowley, not in the way he wants to, and Crowley doesn’t touch him, not like that, doesn’t even indicate that he wants to be touched.

(The moment he slams Aziraphale up against the wall in Tadfield Manor doesn’t count. But it does remind Aziraphale how dangerous this is. Crowley’s fists in his lapels, his face pressing in close, seething rage rolling off of him, and Aziraphale is damned, Aziraphale is blessed, Aziraphale _wants_ —)

(He cannot want any of this.)

Then all of a sudden it changes.

That night, arriving back from Tadfield on a bus that wasn’t supposed to come this far, the angel and the demon trudge up the stairs to Crowley’s flat. Crowley opens the door, lets him in. Aziraphale has just a few moments to take in the sparse furniture, the modern layout, the array of artwork on display before he feels Crowley falter.

“You must be so tired,” he says softly, as Crowley sways on his feet.

“I’m fucking exhausted,” comes the hoarse reply. 

“What can I do to help?”

Crowley looks up at him, tired, fearful, lonely yellow eyes.

“Hold me?”

His voice is so small, as if he hardly thinks himself worthy of the comfort, as if this is too much to ask. He _feels_ small in Aziraphale’s arms, small and fragile and delicate, weary from clutching time in his fist and driving through heat and flame. But he lets Aziraphale hold him, and holds the angel himself with trembling hands and the helpless whimper of a man who thought he had lost everything.

“There, there,” Aziraphale says, at a loss. He’s never actually done this before.

“I thought you were gone. I thought I’d be alone.”

“I’m sorry,” whispers Aziraphale into the crook of his neck. And he is. He’s wronged Crowley too many times, and most wrong of all is that he hadn’t held him sooner— hadn’t been _there_ for him when he needed it. So Aziraphale takes him in his arms and holds his fill of the demon, hellfire and dark wings and snake-venom and all. Gathers him close. Tells him they are safe here, at least for now. Crowley’s knees give way and he sinks to the floor and Aziraphale sinks with him.

They sit crumpled together on the cold marble. Aziraphale loses himself to the sound of Crowley’s breathing and the rise and fall of his chest; he can feel Crowley’s skin stretched taut over words he cannot say. All those years holding back, sitting on his hands, limiting their contact to the bare minimum only to end it with his arms full of his best friend and his only true love. Someone will come from them; a Duke of Hell or an Archangel of Heaven, perhaps both, and they will be punished, although how exactly Aziraphale cannot bear to imagine. He wants Crowley spared, though. If Aziraphale could stop them getting to him, he would. If Aziraphale could take Crowley’s place instead, he would...

He feels the scratch of the worn scrap in his pocket, Agnes’ last prophecy. It all falls into place.

When Crowley has stopped shaking, Aziraphale stands and offers the demon his hand, and Crowley takes it.

“Angel?” he murmurs. “What is it?”

Aziraphale pulls Agnes’ prophecy from his pocket. “I think I may have figured out what this is supposed to mean.”

So you see, the holding is what saves them, in the end.

———

Afterward, there’s no need to be afraid. There’s no need to keep a distance. Aziraphale doesn’t have to hold back anymore; now he reaches out at whim to straighten collars, adjust loose ties, brush the hair out of Crowley’s face. He can do that, now that their former sides have agreed to leave them alone.

He can do that, now that Crowley has made it clear he wants to be touched.

Of course, where Aziraphale’s hands go, his lips usually follow. They find the strength to shape the words that he’s been too afraid to say all this time. “I love you,” he repeats, over and over against Crowley’s skin, wrapped in the demon’s arms on a picnic blanket at the park, sun overhead and ducks swimming about and a brass band playing somewhere in the distance.

Crowley smiles and pulls him closer. Entwines his fingers with Aziraphale’s, cards through delicate curls of white-blond hair. He doesn’t respond, and his skin is still stretched taut over the words he cannot say yet, because holding back on the things you’ve so desperately wanted to shout for centuries is a hard lesson to unlearn.

But Aziraphale knows and he gives him time. One day Crowley’s lips, too, will follow where his hands go. They have this and it is enough. They have each other— always have, always will. For loving. For trusting. For holding. Forever and ever, world without end.


End file.
